Mrs. Bernick: The whole town knows it, unfortunately; and you know you said yourself.

Bernick: I said nothing. The town knows nothing whatever about the affair; the whole thing was no more than idle rumour.

Mrs. Bernick: How magnanimous you are, Karsten!

Bernick: Do not let us have any more of these reminiscences, please!

You don't know how you torture me by raking all that up. (Walks up and down; then flings his stick away from him.) And to think of their coming home now--just now, when it is particularly necessary for me that I should stand well in every respect with the town and with the Press. Our newspaper men will be sending paragraphs to the papers in the other towns about here. Whether I receive them well, or whether I receive them ill, it will all be discussed and talked over. They will rake up all those old stories--as you do. In a community like ours--(Throws his gloves down on the table.) And I have not a soul here to whom I can talk about it and to whom I can go for support.

Mrs. Bernick: No one at all, Karsten?

Bernick: No--who is there? And to have them on my shoulders just at this moment! Without a doubt they will create a scandal in some way or another--she, in particular. It is simply a calamity to be connected with such folk in any way!

Mrs. Bernick: Well, I can't help their--

Bernick: What can't you help? Their being your relations? No, that is quite true.

Mrs. Bernick: And I did not ask them to come home.

Bernick: That's it--go on! "I did not ask them to come home; I did not write to them; I did not drag them home by the hair of their heads!"

Oh, I know the whole rigmarole by heart.

Mrs. Bernick (bursting into tears): You need not be so unkind--

Bernick: Yes, that's right--begin to cry, so that our neighbours may have that to gossip about too. Do stop being so foolish, Betty. Go and sit outside; some one may come in here. I don't suppose you want people to see the lady of the house with red eyes? It would be a nice thing, wouldn't it, if the story got out about that--. There, I hear some one in the passage. (A knock is heard at the door.) Come in! (MRS. BERNICK takes her sewing and goes out down the garden steps. AUNE comes in from the right.)

Aune: Good morning, Mr. Bernick.

Bernick: Good morning. Well, I suppose you can guess what I want you for?

Aune: Mr. Krap told me yesterday that you were not pleased with--

Bernick: I am displeased with the whole management of the yard, Aune.

The work does not get on as quickly as it ought. The "Palm Tree" ought to have been under sail long ago. Mr. Vigeland comes here every day to complain about it; he is a difficult man to have with one as part owner.

Aune: The "Palm Tree" can go to sea the day after tomorrow.

Bernick: At last. But what about the American ship, the "Indian Girl,"

which has been laid up here for five weeks and--

Aune: The American ship? I understood that, before everything else, we were to work our hardest to get your own ship ready.

Bernick: I gave you no reason to think so. You ought to have pushed on as fast as possible with the work on the American ship also; but you have not.

Aune: Her bottom is completely rotten, Mr. Bernick; the more we patch it, the worse it gets.

Bernick: That is not the reason. Krap has told me the whole truth. You do not understand how to work the new machines I have provided--or rather, you will not try to work them.

Aune: Mr. Bernick, I am well on in the fifties; and ever since I was a boy I have been accustomed to the old way of working--

Bernick: We cannot work that way now-a-days. You must not imagine, Aune, that it is for the sake of making profit; I do not need that, fortunately; but I owe consideration to the community I live in, and to the business I am at the head of. I must take the lead in progress, or there would never be any.

Aune: I welcome progress too, Mr. Bernick.

Bernick: Yes, for your own limited circle--for the working class. Oh, I know what a busy agitator you are; you make speeches, you stir people up; but when some concrete instance of progress presents itself--as now, in the case of our machines--you do not want to have anything to do with it; you are afraid.

Aune: Yes, I really am afraid, Mr. Bernick. I am afraid for the number of men who will have the bread taken out of their mouths by these machines. You are very fond, sir, of talking about the consideration we owe to the community; it seems to me, however, that the community has its duties too. Why should science and capital venture to introduce these new discoveries into labour, before the community has had time to educate a generation up to using them?

Bernick: You read and think too much, Aune; it does you no good, and that is what makes you dissatisfied with your lot.

Aune: It is not, Mr. Bernick; but I cannot bear to see one good workman dismissed after another, to starve because of these machines.

Bernick: Hm! When the art of printing was discovered, many a quill-driver was reduced to starvation.

Aune: Would you have admired the art so greatly if you had been a quill-driver in those days, sir?

Bernick: I did not send for you to argue with you. I sent for you to tell you that the "Indian Girl" must be ready to put to sea the day after tomorrow.

Aune: But, Mr. Bernick--

Bernick: The day after tomorrow, do you hear?--at the same time as our own ship, not an hour later. I have good reasons for hurrying on the work. Have you seen today's paper? Well, then you know the pranks these American sailors have been up to again. The rascally pack are turning the whole town upside down. Not a night passes without some brawling in the taverns or the streets--not to speak of other abominations.

Aune: Yes, they certainly are a bad lot.

Bernick: And who is it that has to bear the blame for all this disorder? It is I! Yes, it is I who have to suffer for it. These newspaper fellows are making all sorts of covert insinuations because we are devoting all our energies to the "Palm Tree." I, whose task in life it is to influence my fellow-citizens by the force of example, have to endure this sort of thing cast in my face. I am not going to stand that. I have no fancy for having my good name smirched in that way.

Aune: Your name stands high enough to endure that and a great deal more, sir.

Bernick: Not just now. At this particular moment I have need of all the respect and goodwill my fellow-citizens can give me. I have a big undertaking on, the stocks, as you probably have heard; but, if it should happen that evil-disposed persons succeeded in shaking the absolute confidence I enjoy, it might land me in the greatest difficulties. That is why I want, at any price, to avoid these shameful innuendoes in the papers, and that is why I name the day after tomorrow as the limit of the time I can give you.

Aune: Mr. Bernick, you might just as well name this afternoon as the limit.

Bernick: You mean that I am asking an impossibility?

Aune: Yes, with the hands we have now at the yard.

Bernick: Very good; then we must look about elsewhere.

Aune: Do you really mean, sir, to discharge still more of your old workmen?

Bernick: No, I am not thinking of that.

Aune: Because I think it would cause bad blood against you both among the townsfolk and in the papers, if you did that.

Bernick: Very probably; therefore, we will not do it. But, if the "Indian Girl" is not ready to sail the day after tomorrow, I shall discharge you.

Aune (with a start): Me! (He laughs.) You are joking, Mr. Bernick.

Bernick: I should not be so sure of that, if I were you.